Published: March 18, 2013
The sale of shares in Bank Zachodni could raise as much as US$1.68bn.
Spain’s Santander and Belgium’s KBC Groep NV are to sell stakes in Bank Zachodni, according to a regulatory filing posted by the Polish bank. If successful, the sale would be a record share offering for a Polish public trading company.
The offering will consist of up to 20mn shares, priced in a range of 240-270 zloty (US$74.47-83.78) each, and could raise as much as 5.39bn zloty (US$1.68bn). KBC is selling its whole 16% share, while Santander is offering around 5.2%. Final pricing will be announced later on Monday.
Deutsche Bank, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, KBC Securities, Santander Investment, Dom Maklerski, Goldman Sachs and UBS will help manage the deal.
The sale of a stake in Bank Zachodni, Poland’s fifth largest by assets, would bring the total value of deals conducted in Poland during 2013 to 14.9bn zloty – a record start to the year. In January state-owned Bank Gospodarstwa sold a 5.24bn zloty stake in the country’s largest bank, PKO Bank Polski. UniCredit followed suit, divesting a 3.7bn zloty stake in Poland’s second-largest lender Bank Pekao.
Stock market volatility on the back of the economic crisis in Cyprus, and the need of many European banks to shore up their balance sheets, suggests that more divestments are likely over the medium-term.